For those who don’t know me, I am a CPA living and working in Bozeman, Montana. I received a phone call a couple of weeks ago from a man who was interested, he said, in engaging my services. We set up an appointment.
He is running a new start up company that specializes in helping small businesses obtain credit. It’s an interesting concept – a multi-leveled service that would build up credit ratings, set up web pages, and overall help these unemployed carpenters and plumbers and bank executives become credible.
He didn’t want my services. He wanted my client list. He said I would be doing them a favor by hooking them up with him. End of story.
Here’s what is most interesting – up until June of 2008, my client-to-be was in the mortgage business – he ran a storefront. He said he left while the leaving was good.
I doubt the foresight to leave before the crash – I think he’s just trying to land on his feet. But here’s the bottom line – the flimflammers that were enticing people into ARMS, offering mortgages and refinances to gullible and unqualified people (and pocketing exorbitant fees), are the same people who are always with us. In the late 1990’s, they were probably doing dot.com startup companies. When things are slow, they sell used cars. They also run small casinos. They cannot resist the lure of the fast buck.
Now that the mortgage business has gone belly up, they are looking for new scams. Buyer beware.
Piece of Mindful 
Now, who should visit planet earth? They’re called entrepreneurs, Mark – and they create lots of jobs when they hit.
I mean, Jesus, someone has to be willing to take on risk. You’re free not to buy from them.
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I have a client that started a construction company here in Bozeman, employs 15 people at very good wages with full benefits. That’s an entrepreneur. A guy sitting in a storefront selling mortgages to unworthy clients, his greatest incentive being instant money, employing no one and cashing in big and then running – not.
Where does entrepreneur stop and the olive oil business begin? Is there not a line to be drawn between legitimate risk taking and marginal shady operations?
You lecture me like I don’t know what risk taking is. I’m talking about the guys on the margins.
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Would their have been unworthy mortgage sales if it weren’t for ACORN, Senator Dodd, and Rep Frank?
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There are yellow dandelions in the field and Saturn is on the horizon tonight too.
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You’re being judgmental of someone who is trying to make a living. I don’t care about your client and his risk inasmuch as he is risking what he has. The guy who was a mortgage broker, and maybe went bust for all you know, you have cast as some kind of shady crook. Do you know he was? Do you have any idea what he “at risk” in his life?
Here’s my guess. You exploit people who could do there taxes with a $400 PC and a $39 copy of some tax software. But that’s OK for you to do because someone, who otherwise is capable of doing the task, has been informed that he might miss something – probably by a guy like you. Are you an entrepreneur? My guess is that you are. But for you to “draw the line” tells me that you’re an elitist.
My guess is that you dismissed this guy out of hand without listening to his idea – or at least not taking the time to discover what he was doing because he was in a practice that deem unworthy. Well, I think that 90% of CPA’s are nothing but hacks who don’t know shit about finance. And I’m beginning to think your not part of the 10%.
You piss me off. There are honest mortgage brokers, honest sales people, and honest tort lawyers.
Don’t tell me what entrepreneurs are. I’ve had literally thousands of them as clients over the years.
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His office was a hovel with a poster of Ron Paul. My overall impression of him was negative. I am capable of drawing judgments of people. I use Drake software. It’s not cheap. My impression of the mortgage crisis is that most people were drawn in by mortgage brokers lured by easy terms from above. My impression of most financial advisers is that they are 5 percenters who try to steer old widows into oversold mutual funds and annuities. Most financial products are legal theft. Your profession has alot to answer for, but never will.
God what a jerk.
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Phew! Now that I’ve calmed down from the latest Budge missive, it’s worth adding that in a country like ours, where people are constantly on edge about their next paycheck, health crisis, and deeply indoctrinated in the myth of the loner, we are constantly working angles on one another. Everyone has a deal and a real deal. Hardly anyone can be trusted.
That’s the way we are taught to live. What a country.
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Yeah, you’re capable of drawing conclusion – regardless of whether they have any validity – like when you made the racist assumption that a native American panhandler was an alcoholic.
It’s good to know that we have someone who can judge the value of any enterprise with such certitude.
I don’t have a problem with your lack of trust – that’s your business. But blaming the salespeople for selling legal products is hypocritical bullshit for a guy who justifies the protectionist industry to which he belongs when you know that the service could be provided by someone without the lauded credential at significantly less cost. If you think most financial products are “legal theft”, write your friggin’ congressmen. Most of these salespeople are just trying to make a living.
His office was a “hovel” – so what? He had a Ron Paul poster? Heaven forbid – maybe the guy is against the war?
You’re a first class judgmental bigot.
Sure there are bad players in every industry – yours included.
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You act as if I haven’t been alive for 58 years and don’t know how to measure people in their boots. I do. I’ve come to know a lot about you just by reading what you write. I don’t want to have dinner with you. You’re a first class arrogant ass.
The man I met in the hovel with the hyperactive personality who didn’t shut up the whole time – I judged him in his boots. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think I’ve met him many times before in my life. Where most people are diligent and work their lives in hopes of building something (only to lose it to illness and market crashes if they are poor working stiffs), this guy was a fast buck artist. He wants it quick, he wants it now. FBA’s are attracted to certain industries – you see them in real estate when prices are on the uptick, in gambling ventures, in teh roofing business after hail storms, and in the last few years, in storefront mortgage companies. Those are the ones who place most of the bad loans. FBA’s who operate on very high levels, as with Sachs or Morgan, can, and have, do much more harm.
My CPA certificate has opened doors for me that would not have been opened otherwise. It conveys a sense of trust. It does have value. It’s not easy to come by. CPA’s have banded together to engage in restraint of trade. I’m not involved in that part of the business. I don’t do any auditing. Not my thing. I hate that part of the work. And for what it’s worth, I only make a small part of my income from taxes, and use that primarily as a vehicle for meeting new clients. If I had to live on that alone, I’d be broke. Many of us CPA’s in Montana are relegated to tax preparation. I’m lucky not to have to live that way.
When a I see a guy on the street with ragged clothing, sunken eyes and purple bloodshot skin panhandling, I assume alcoholism. Maybe instead he’s got a rare disease that only House can cure, but I’ll go with the odds. The fact that he was native American was incidental, but that race does have a problem metabolizing alcohol, so maybe I’m onto something? Geez Dave. I dunno. Maybe I should yield to your superior judgment in the matter. Not having been there, you still know more than me. I yield.
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Measuring people in their boots is called prejudice. I don’t give a damn about your limited provincial views of mankind.
When I was a young banker I was working the lunch shift at the Caldwell office of the Idaho First National Bank. A cowboy came in – dirty, stinky, and foul mouthed. He asked me where the branch manager, a guy named McNellis, was. I said he was at lunch and asked if I could help him. He said “No, just tell that asshole that Harry Bettis was here to have him buy lunch.”
I thought the guy was a crackpot but when I told McNellis that some guy named Harry Bettis came to see him I was informed that Bettis was not only the controlling stockholder of Idaho’s largest bank but that he was laso the state’s largest cattle rancher. Yep, I measured him in his boots.
About a week later I went to a Caldwell, Idaho chamber of commerce meeting where I sat next to this poorly dressed hick who I also thought was a crackpot. After lunch I introduced myself and discovered I’d had lunch with Jack Simplot – the number one supplier of processed potatoes in the world.
On another occasion I met with the CEO of American Dental, here in Missoula. He was clad with gold and had a walnut paneled desk. Six months later he was convicted of bank fraud and American went BK.
Then there was the time that I was in NYC getting some instruments fixed at the legendary Manny’s Music Store (I was a roadie at the time) and I ran across a guy coming out drunk to the bone screaming about some unintelligible crap. Inside I was informed that he was “Screamin'” Scott Simon – the drummer for Sha Na Na. I had measure him in his boots too. That was in the early ’70’s and Simon, with Sha Na Na, came back for round two of success.
I had a customer in Chicago who figured out a way to recycle concrete into certified road stone. It was a brilliant idea; concrete was collected from resurfacing sites on Interstate 90. He then removed the rebar and crushed the concrete into road stone sized sized “gravel.” But his costs were out of line and he went BK. The next time I say him he was working out of stinky little office selling some kind of repackaged lubricant for dental tools. He looked like shit, his wardrobe had discriminated, and he had a few too many drinks on his lunch hour. He was trying to rebuild his life, however, and made a good business of it which he eventually sold to a dental supply company in Chicago.
People go through shit. Their lives change and, sometimes, risk takes their heads off. But you would chose simply to “measure them in their boots.” For a guy who is always preaching humanity it seems that you need a dose of it yourself.
I don’t want to have dinner with you either. Your judgmentalism makes me want to puke.
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I’ve had many similar experiences. You’re not unique. But I also know there are people …
I know a guy who runs a small natural gas production company. Here’s what he would do: They drill lots of gas wells in northern Montana, but often have to cap them and wait for a pipeline. In the meantime, they do division orders, but they take their time. So this guy would keep an eye out at Montana Oil and gas Commission looking for new wells, and go out in the field and buy up the royalty interests before people knew they were sitting on top of a gas field. He’s an entrepreneur. Didn’t hire anyone, didn’t produce any new wealth, grabbed some for himself, all legal.
I am nothing like what you say, of course. You’re just a day ruiner. I wrote about a guy who was shaking down Bozeman CPA’s, offering nothing in return, wanting their client lists. I’d have to be stupid to give him a name, and I’d for sure lose clients. Then I find out he comes from a mortgage storefront. He’s a fast talker, never letting me get a word in. He offers investment advice. I ask him what he wants, he says he wants my client list. He asked me to meet with him under false pretenses. I draw conclusions.
In the oil and gas business, I learned at a very young age that there were people looking to undress you and shake out your pockets while you stood there, and people actually looking for oil and gas. There were people you dealt with, people you avoided. It’s like that everywhere – there are business people, there are fast buck people. Don’t tell me you’re not on the lookout. If you’re not, you’re broke.
Here’s a New Yorker article on psychopaths – interesting thing: Psychopaths are drawn to certain professions – law enforcement and the military, of course, but those people contain their own pretty well. The most common line of work for them? Business.
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Gentlemen,
Please return to your respective corners. I read with great enjoyment the punch and counter punch points of Budge and Tolarski. Both made some great points.
I’ve met Budge before. Not this particular one, but many just like him. They talk a great game. They are the ‘defenders’ of the down trodden when they think everyone is listening. When you read what he’s written closely, you can see the cracks in his logic. I don’t want to have dinner with him because I like to sleep in bed, not at a tabl. He will pontificate until the wees hours of the morning, until he’s convinced everyone “within earshot” that he is wise and honorable to a fault. I’m not sure he rises to the level of asshole, but he’s getting really really close.
Tolarski won the argument. He comes across as more honest than the two. Personally, I don’t anyone who hides behind the “discrimination is always evil” argument. We all have life experiences. If we didn’t learn from them, we’d be morons.
Thanks both of you for a very enjoyable read.
Ken
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